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Monday, September 22, 2008

Spirit of One

Mark 12:29-30
“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:4-5 in answer to the question of what is the greatest commandment? One might have expected Him to say it was most important to have no other gods before the one true God. But He did not cite one of the ten commandments and the first part of the commandment He does cite is not a commandment but a statement. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. He is not saying the Lord our God is the only one, the only God; although He is the only God. Jesus is making the statement from Deuteronomy that the Lord is ONE.

The spirit that divides is the spirit of the antichrist. This is the same spirit that blinds the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from believing that Jesus is sent from the Father; that He is one with the Father. God is one. That is the issue of unbelief now as it was in the day when Jesus spoke this commandment as a man. Jesus is very serious about this oneness of God. Those who do not believe that Jesus is God and is one with the Father will not be saved. Those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. What do they accuse the Holy Spirit of? They blaspheme the Holy Spirit in separating Him from the Father and the Son. They attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to be that of the spirit of man or of Satan; as they did the Son.

In John chapter 17 Jesus makes a great prayer for all believers. He is very emphatic in His prayer that those who believe in Him be one with each other as He and the Father are one SO THAT the world will know that the Father sent Him. He does not pray that the world will believe that He died for their sins. First they must believe that Jesus is one with the Father. Otherwise, He is only a martyr. Our oneness is to be a testimony to His oneness with the Father. He prays also that we will be one with Him and the Father. We will be one. God will be one and when He calls all those home who have His Spirit we will enter into the fullness of the oneness of God.

It is no wonder that the enemy is so busy working in us to divide our loyalty to God within our hearts. Marriages and churches and every place there is godly unity is a target for the spirit of division. Mainly Satan aims at the individual heart because he knows that to rule the inner man or to keep him from being entirely ruled by God is to work division in others so that the world will not believe Jesus was sent from the Father and not be able to come to salvation. As with most other things God has declared as right and beautiful, Satan attempts to imitate. We have a great false unity in false religions and in our society of relativism and tolerance.

We must be careful to not seek unity in the way of the world and we also must be cautious about throwing out the true meaning of oneness because we are so sick of hearing about the false “oneness”. The oneness of Spirit of God’s people is crucial to others seeing God as He is and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is beyond simply making a united front and showing others how well we can get along, although that is helpful. It is insisting on the rule of the Holy Spirit ALONE in ourselves and in our churches and families. Oneness is not a tolerance issue. It is quite the opposite. We must guard our own hearts first and then the hearts of others for our sake and for theirs and mostly for the sake of the gospel. God is one and the enemy is very busy trying to disprove that. Who will we work with?

God is one and we are to worship Him as one. We are to worship God with ALL our heart, soul, mind and strength. We are to worship with all that we are; as one. We are to worship God corporately, as one. This cannot happen unless we are worshiping God as one within ourselves. Individually, our hearts must be united to learn from God and to truly worship Him. Ps 86:11 unite my heart to fear your name. If the spirit of division is at work within us it will be working from us to divide God’s people from each other and to encourage divided hearts in others. We must seek Jesus to completely rule every area of us and all that we have. We must give over ALL: money, jobs, children and marriages. ALL. Whatever we hold back from God will serve the spirit of division and Satan is never happy with just a little. Thankfully, neither is the Spirit of God!
Zachariah 14:9
And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
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About Me

I met Jesus in March 1997 and soon after I began the practice of writing things down that were happening in my life with the Lord. Over the years, in the rare times that I have looked back into older journals, I have found that the things the Lord was showing me then are the same things He is showing me now. This does not make them less helpful, on the contrary, it makes them more helpful. God is exactly who He says He is and is doing all that He said He would. We need to be reminded of God and His faithfulness. The intention of this blog is to encourage God's people to continue and to grow in their confidence in Jesus Christ. The things posted here are from my journal and are meant to be an example of God's love and help as He loves and helps me. I would expect that you would have reason to trust Jesus Christ with your life (and death) if you haven't heard about Him so I invite you to go to my page "About Jesus" to see why you can and should have every confidence in Jesus and Jesus only for all things.